


I Won't be Judged for Doing as I Ought

by multiplelizards



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Familial Relationships, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, for as much as we know about canon, or at least Geralt lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28867512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/multiplelizards/pseuds/multiplelizards
Summary: Geralt goes through his trial of the grasses. Twice.Vesemir watches.
Relationships: Eskel & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Eskel & Vesemir (The Witcher), Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Vesemir
Comments: 26
Kudos: 82





	I Won't be Judged for Doing as I Ought

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to the discord who helped me hash out this idea originally and then proceeded to listen to me flip through title ideas. Y'all are stellar and I love you!!
> 
> Title from [Servants and Kings by Radical Face](https://youtu.be/PWQe1U-8D1Y)

The trial of the grasses is always hard to watch. It's hard on the cohort of boys who will be entering into the lab room. It's hard on the younger ones, who are about to watch the older boys they look up to either change drastically or die. It’s hard for the older ones, who are always reminded of their own trial of the grasses. It's hard on their trainers, who pretend so hard for these boys they think of as sons. _Yes, everything will be alright. You'll be okay_. Everyone knows that's a lie, but it's a nice one, and they all cling to it equally tightly.

The only true blessing is that the boys are not enhanced yet, do not know how badly their mentors lie, how fiercely they ache for them, for the ones who will die and the ones who will change. Neither is a good fate, not really. None of these men would wish this on anyone else. And yet--

Vesemir has an especially hard time with this group. His own child surprise is there, Geralt, eyes bright with terror, but he holds himself bravely anyway. He's clutching the hand of one of his peers, Eskel, only a little older. There are other boys, ones Vesemir knows not quite as well as Geralt and his friend, but well enough. He cares for all of them so, so fiercely. He knows most of them won't survive the trial.

The trainers are allowed to say goodbye before the boys enter the room, the one concession their guild makes to the men they ask to mentor these boys, grow close with them, before most of them will die. There are only twenty five in this cohort. They'll be lucky if ten make it out. That, and the mages have been considering running some of these boys through the trial a second time, as an "experiment." Vesemir thinks it's an awful idea, but he is only a swordmaster--no one asks him.

He watches as the line of boys file into the lab, clapping them gently on the shoulders as they go. Some stop and hug his fellow trainers, hug him. This is the last time the boys won't be reprimanded for seeking comfort--those that survive will be expected to follow the unspoken rules that all wolf school witchers follow.

"Vesemir," Geralt's next in line, Eskel right behind him, "Vesemir." It's quiet, terrified, but he’s obviously trying to be brave. Vesemir stoops to hug him, wrap his arms around thin, boyish shoulders.

"You'll be okay, Geralt," he says, an empty platitude. No one knows for sure who will survive, who won't. He pets a hand back through thick, red-brown curls, his heart swelling for this boy who might as well be his son. He hasn't been this deeply attached to a trainee in years, knows he'll be broken if Geralt does not survive, even as he lets him go, "I'll be here when you wake, okay?" They're always here when the bodies are brought out.

"Okay," he whispers, soft. He's always been soft spoken, always been sweet. His eyes, blue, blue, blue, gaze up at Vesemir with a shaky kind of calm. "Thank you. For everything." He doesn't wait for Vesemir to answer, just steps past to his next tutor. It rips something apart in his chest, to be thanked by a boy who he may be passing along to his death.

As soon as Geralt's past, Eskel's darting forward, wrapping his arms around Vesemir's waist too. He holds the boy back. "He's scared," Eskel says, quiet so only Vesemir (and the other witchers) can hear him.

"Aren't you?" Vesemir asks, just as quiet. Eskel gives him a long, considering look. The boy's always been a little strange, a little more aloof from his peers, Geralt being the exception.

"Yes," he says finally, "but I--" he sucks in a sharp breath, "I don't want to make it if he doesn't." He says it with finality, and Vesemir can tell this has been weighing on him.

"Eskel," he says, voice gone soft, “son, they’ll do their best, okay?” It’s the most he can offer him. Eskel nods.

"If he doesn't make it, I don't want to," Eskel repeats, voice a little firmer, "I promised him." Vesemir's chest aches. He squeezes Eskel's shoulders a little tighter, hopes for both their sakes that they're two of the lucky ones.

After the last boy files in, the trainers leave. No one needs to be around when the screaming starts.

\--------------------------

All in all, nine boys survive, and seven of them are immediately run through a second round of trials. The two surviving boys not chosen for the extra mutations are brought out on the seventh day, and Vesemir's heart clenches to see Eskel, but no Geralt. He knows he wasn't one of the bodies brought out over the long week, one of the unlucky ones. No, he's more unlucky than that--survive one trial to go through a second. No child has ever survived a second round of the trials and he already mourns for the boy he’s sure to lose. His son.

He's not surprised when he finds Eskel in his personal rooms that night. He's pale and a little feverish still, a circular moon of a face peeking out from under a mound of blankets. He's past the danger point but he still shouldn't be up out of bed, shouldn't be here.

"Eskel?" he asks softly, approaching the lump that is one of the two surviving students. The pile sniffles, shifting minutely. "Eskel," Vesemir chides, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling the furs away from his face. As the blankets shift, Eskel launches himself into Vesemir's arms, choking on a sob. He knows he shouldn't allow it, but he doesn't push the boy away, tucks him in close. He's only twelve, he's lost most of his friends and he may (will) still lose more.

"Ves," he sobs, "Geralt--"

"Isn't dead yet," he soothes, running a hand down his back, comforting. He doesn’t believe it himself.

"He will be though," Eskel pulls back to look him in the face, tears streaking down his cheeks. His eyes are gold and cat-slit, transformed. 

"I don't know," Vesemir answers honestly, squeezing the boy's shoulders.

"I promised him, Vesemir, I--"

"I know, son," he says gently, tugs him back to his chest, rocks him gently. "I know."

\--------------------------

Eskel stays in his room, curled up under the blankets at the foot of his bed. No one says anything, although technically it shouldn't be allowed. The seven chosen boys have dwindled to three in just two days, and Vesemir is terrified every body brought out will be Geralt's. None of them are, so far, but that doesn't ease his fears, doesn't make his chest ache less for the boys they are losing.

Eskel never asks, but Vesemir tells him every day, anyway. "Not yet," he'll say when he returns in the evenings, and Eskel's shoulders will loosen a little before tensing back up.

By day four, there is only one boy left alive, and Vesemir demands to see him. The mages try to talk him out of it--he's not coherent, he likely won't make it, there's no point--but Vesemir's stubborn when he wants to be.

He hates the lab as much as any of the other witchers do, even if his time here was long ago now. He focuses past the instinctual swell of anxiety that always bubbles to the surface in here and focuses instead on the thin body strapped into the bed.

Geralt doesn't look good, a week and a half after being strapped to the bed and pumped full of toxins. He's still, which is terrifying, and he's quiet, which is even more frightening. Usually, the boys scream, they thrash. This stillness is too much like death.

Still, Vesemir steps up beside the bed and runs his fingers through sweat-damp hair, pushing it up out of his face. It's gone shock white, an effect from the second round of injections, so the mages say.

"Hi, son," Vesemir says past the lump in his throat. Geralt's eyelids flutter and his head rolls, but he doesn't otherwise respond. "Told you I'd be here, didn't I?" He groans, a soft noise, and Vesemir's chest clenches. "I know, Geralt, I know."

He just stands there for an impossibly long time, carding his fingers through his hair, over and over. The mages pop in occasionally to check on him, but he's been stable for most of the past day and there's not much they can do if he takes a turn for the worse at this point anyway.

As he stands there, tears slip from the corner of Geralt’s closed eyes, and Vesemir wipes them away, gentle.

"Eskel's worried about you," he says, watches Geralt's face for any hint of response, finding none, “and I know you've been in pain for a long time, but--" he has to pause and clear his throat again, "the days are never as long as they seem. You've got three more to live through. You can do that, Geralt. You can make it that long." The noise that rises in Geralt's throat is soft, like a sob. Vesemir leans forward and presses a kiss to his temple, feeling self-conscious, but also knowing he'll never forgive himself if he doesn't.

"I love you, son. You can do this."

\--------------------------

Three days later, Geralt's carried out of the lab, feverish and pale, but conscious and alive. Eskel cries when Vesemir tells him, and again when he takes him to Geralt's room to sit on the edge of the bed and wrap himself about the other boy's weak frame. Three survivors out a cohort of twenty-five.

Vesemir gives them some privacy, lets Eskel cry into Geralt's shoulder, lets Geralt push weak fingers into his brother's hair and hold him back. Three boys and two more sets of trials, trials they still may not survive.

When Vesemir checks up on them a few hours later with dinner plates for both of them, Eskel's curled up tight beside Geralt, asleep. Geralt, though stares as he comes in, sets the food to the side. Vesemir nods and moves to leave, but the cracked, painful voice stops him in his tracks.

"Thank you. For everything." There's no bitterness there, only a weary kind of love and something like relief. Vesemir has no right to it, no right to the thankfulness of this boy who he has stood by and let be hurt, over and over again in ways no boy, no witcher, ever should.

He nods again, in acknowledgment. Geralt may be thankful, but Vesemir won't forgive himself for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on [tumblr.](https://writinglizards.tumblr.com/)


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